I-Search Paper - ( Weapons)

Omar Flores

Professor Mary Klann

HIST 110: United States History II

Friday 20th, 2020

I-Search Paper

Weapons in history have drastically changed throughout history as you look back from an earlier time in history you would see that they used a lot of hand made weapons such as bows, arrows, spears, clubs, small objects with a sharp point at either end, usually anything that was blunt. Moving on in history weapons had more ideas and thought put into them such as forging metal to make certain instruments of war and had more tech such as a crossbow making the bow useless comparing it to the crossbow.

At a certain point countries, territories and even states would go to war with each other so they had to step their weaponry to compete against one another. In this paper, I will discuss the weapons from the first and the second world war and the changes. For how did the weapons from ww1 changed during the transition to ww2

World War I began in 1914, ended in 1918 being known as “the Great War” and having the Central Powers going to war against the Allied Powers. While during world war 2 that took place in 1939 till 1945,during this time period there were new invasions and ideas such as the machine gun. The key difference for the machine guns from ww1 and ww1 to were that in ww2 was that they kept the same concept but now became more reliable by adding two different types from light to heavy machine guns. The lights were easier to carry around while the heavy was designed for more power and accuracy. The main problem with the machine gun from ww1 was that it would fire about three hundred rounds but when it did the barrel would tend to heat up.

Planes and other forms of transposition in these times of war made a huge effect in the battlefield for a lot of time and it determined the outcome of each battle. The making of planes was a great advancement and machine guns were around that allowed for planes to have mounted machine guns added, for fights in the sky or dogfights. With this and during WW2 there were adjustments for dogfights that made planes faster, lighter, and easier to fly as for the weapons on the plane became more powerful since it got upgraded.

Submarines were also big during times of war as not many possessed this type of technology and would see very beneficial to either side, from the first world war 1 it was able to sink ships from underneath but in world war 2, sub were now equipped with sonar and now were faster and had more powerful weapons.

One thing that would have to be the biggest step up in the change from ww1 to ww2 was the introduction of nuclear warfare and the atomic bomb. While ww1 did have tear gas and mustard gas, nuclear war was way more of a threat for it was something that could destroy the whole field, wiping out millions of lives, and land being wiped out leaving nothing. The Atomic bomb is known as “the most terrible weapon ever known in human history”.

Sources

“Technology WWI vs. WWII.” Understand History: Causes WWI & WWII, understandhistorywwiwwii.weebly.com/technology-wwi-vs-wwii.html.

Klann, Prof. “Module 20: The Cold War.” HIST 110, 26 Oct. 2020, maryklann.wixsite.com/hist110/post/module-20-the-cold-war.